Protests across the country continue over the death of George Floyd, an unarmed black man who spent his last moments pinned under the knee of a white police officer.
Now former officer Derek Chauvin, who kneeled on Floyd’s neck, was charged with third-degree murder and second-degree manslaughter. Demonstrators want the offices that watched Floyd’s death to be charged. — Disputing an initial police finding, a private autopsy report commissioned by George Floyd’s family found that Floyd died from asphyxiation caused by sustained neck and back compression that led to a lack of blood flow to the brain, according to a statement from Floyd family attorney Ben Crump. Dr. Allecia Wilson, who conducted the autopsy, described the manner of death as homicide at a news conference today. Crump’s statement further calls for the arrest of all the officers who played a part in Floyd’s death and calls for a first-degree murder charge to be brought against Derek Chauvin, the former Minneapolis Police Department seen kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes in a video caught on social media. Some background: A preliminary report from George Floyd’s autopsy conducted by the Hennepin County Medical Examiner found “no physical findings that support a diagnosis of traumatic asphyxia or strangulation,” the criminal complaint released by the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office in the arrest of former Minneapolis Police Officer Derek Chauvin. Floyd’s cause and manner of death remains pending and is being investigated by local, state and federal law enforcement, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s Office said in a statement.
